INTRODUCTION:

At times referred to as the ‘Horn of Crisis’, this part of Africa, has disproportionately suffered from protracted and intense levels of violent conflict that have adversely affected overall security, development and democratic transformation. Largely made up of individuals with long experience in the Horn of Africa (encompassing Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia/Somaliland and Djibouti), and in the fields of security and development research and execution, the Center for Policy Research and Dialogue (CPRD) professionals aspire to bring their unique skills to bear on selected problems of security, peace and reconciliation in the Horn of Africa region.

BACKGROUND:

The importance of public discourse, policy dialogue and organized participation of civil society in the policymaking processes of states has gained currency as critical pathways towards peace and stability, economic development and creation of democratic cultures, among academics, policymakers and citizens. Precisely how these pathways can be negotiated at a scale and pace that is both commensurate with the socio-economic reality of a given region and is genuinely transforming, is less known. The CPRD proposes that a significant point of departure for the realization and enhancement of citizen participation in matters of public concern, and more directly in policy making and implementation, is access to, and effective utilization of information and considered policy options, in all spheres. Research and analysis has a crucial role to play in this regard.

The Horn of Africa is home to some of the least-developed countries in the world and is overwhelmed by devastating conflicts that result in a sustained state of humanitarian crisis. No sub-region is spared, with impacts of conflict most severe in the Horn – an area that has rarely known peace, prosperity and democracy. These inter and intra state conflicts pose challenging issues for scholars and policymakers, and for the people and countries involved. The toll is monumental in terms of war damage to productivity, scarce resources diverted to armaments and military organizations, insecurity and displacement of affected populations, and destruction to the environment with far-reaching implications on overall development.

Few academic works however focus analysis on the interplay of conflict prevention, management and resolution, with economic development and governance, and disseminate the findings. Issues of peace and security, and economic development, both as separate disciplines and as they interact and impact upon each other and society at large, though extremely critical to the overall development process in Sub-Saharan Africa in general, and the Horn of Africa in particular, have not attracted the attention these complexities deserve. This neglect has subsequently resulted in a dearth of credible research products and institutions sufficiently positioned with the relevant information and qualified to furnish to stakeholders and policymakers, reliable and consistent sets of data, well thought-out critiques and present alternative policy options. To fill the knowledge vacuum that currently exists in the fields of peace and security, conflict prevention and management and sustainable economic development in the Horn of Africa, the CPRD will focus on these critical issues.

Generally the limited public dialogue and discourse that does exist in the Horn, functions on an ad hoc basis (emphasis on non-research based presentations in local media and occasional conferences), lacks considered, research-based input, and is constrained by the absence of continuity. This scenario is likely to persist unless practical measures are taken to gradually move forward dialogue actions, both qualitatively and quantitatively, through the systematic promotion of public and policy discourse (grounded in informed research) on a regular and continual basis. One credible mechanism is the establishment of an institution that fosters critical, objective and independent thinking and maps out directions and policies that promote peace, stability and economic development and forwards the knowledge both to governments and civil societies. At present there is a gap in this respect in the sub-region.

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ORGANIZATION:

The Center for Policy Research and Dialogue (CPRD) has been established to take up the gaps in policy dialogue and research related to peace, stability and good governance and ultimately economic development in the Horn of Africa. CPRD is an organization independent of political parties, governments, and interest groups (trade unions, employers associations, farmers associations, donors etc.). The CPRD will be an institution, which sets its own research agendas, prioritizing themes on the basis of importance and relevance to the Horn of Africa. To ensure this, the Center will maintain an independent legal status, a diverse research agenda and funding base (including international, non-governmental and local sources), a broad based constituency of stakeholders, and an appropriate governance structure.

Overview of the CPRD Governance Structure:

The CPRD shall be governed by a General Assembly composed of all members and will act as the highest policy making organ of the organization. The CPRD shall also have a Board, a Council of Advisors and an Executive Director.

The CPRD Board:

The Board oversees the Centre’s overall activities and management of its assets. It will approve the strategic plan, policy, research agenda as well as budget of the Centre. The Board shall have a Chair, Vice Chair and a Secretary.

The CPRD Council of Advisors:

The Centre shall maintain an Advisory Board that shall consist of representatives of civil society organisations, the private sector, and prominent individuals. The main functions of the Council of Advisors are to deliberate on organizational strategies and policies, provide advisory services on a broad range of themes and assist in resource mobilization.

The CPRD Executive Director:

The Executive Director will run the Centre and reports to the Board. The Executive Director shall be responsible for all its operational and administrative matters on a day-to-day basis. Specific responsibilities include preparation of strategic and operational plans and budgets for Board approval, implementation of the plans, designing and implementation of the resource mobilisation strategy, coordination of the overall activities of the Centre, networking, establishing and maintaining contacts with funders, and so on.

Personnel that will work directly with the Executive Director to attain CPRD goals and objectives include: an Administration and Finance head, a Publication and External Relations head and Research Unit heads. Each position reports to the Executive Director and is described briefly below.

Administration and Finance Head: This Administration and Finance position will be responsible for the day-to-day administrative and financial matters of the Centre. International level standards will be maintained to ensure the transparency and accountability of all CPRD administrative and financial systems.

Publications and External Relations Head: This position will focus on publishing the CPRD research findings, document collection, organizing of forums, and will serve as the CPRD public relations focal point and principal fundraiser.

Research Unit Heads (Lead Researchers): It is crucial to ensure that the quality of the Center's work is compatible with its profile and that projects are completed on time. This requires experienced personnel who will be responsible for project management (coordinating research contracts and grants and identifying appropriate researchers). These designated heads of CPRD Research Units will work closely with the researchers, conduct substantive editing of work produced by the researchers, execute analysis of the highest order and prepare comments, conclusions and recommendations on the basis of completed research and collected data.

Researchers: The Centre will maintain qualified researchers who are capable of conducting high level analysis and collecting data from primary and secondary sources. An appropriate institutional structure will be developed to link the different categories of researchers to each other and ultimately the research output. The budget requirements for the remuneration of individual research staff will be considered under each actual research project commissioned.

Support Staff: To be effective, the CPRD professional research staff will require efficient administrative, finance, library/documentation, secretarial and other support services, as appropriate. Accordingly the budget line to provide quality support staff for all CPRD functions, will be derived from the overall overhead budget (Center rent and utilities will also fall under the overhead budget line).

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CPRD MISSION, VISION AND OBJECTIVES:

Mission:

The Center for Policy Research and Dialogue (CPRD) is an independent, non-profit organisation. Its mission is to promote policy dialogue and debate and to inform policymakers, the public and other development partners about advances in the Horn of Africa region with the ultimate objective of fostering peace and prosperity. It will provide data and conduct multidisciplinary research and, based on this, propose policy alternatives and strategic directions on key issues that affect peace and economic development of the Horn of Africa and the well being of its citizens.

Vision:

The aim of the Center for Policy Research and Dialogue (CPRD) is to create a highly credible research institution that will become the leading independent research and training center in the Horn of Africa sub-region and across Africa, capable of meeting its stated mission to advance peace utilizing research and dialogue to influence policy. Its hallmark is objectivity, quality, policy relevance, independence, honesty, and integrity.

Objectives:

• To conduct and promote objective, high quality research on issues of peace and security and socio-economic development that informs the public, policymakers, and development partners.
• To actively disseminate the results of its research.
• To provide short-term training as a means of awareness creation and output dissemination.
• To establish an institution whose staff and research outputs are of the highest quality and integrity.
• To develop a research agenda that examines issues that are of short, medium or long-term, policy relevance.
• To serve as a forum for dialogue and debate involving the government, scholars/experts and practitioners, civil society and other stakeholders on peace and economic development which are issues of critical importance to the Horn of Africa.
• To cooperate with domestic and international research institutions, donors, NGOs, individual professionals, etc. as may be appropriate, so as to create effective linkages and networks for the Center.

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ACTIVITIES:

The Center for Policy Research and Dialogue (CPRD) will actively engage in research and analysis and in facilitating dialogue and discourse through two interrelated key activities:

1. Conduct of objective, high quality research, and active dissemination of results. Commentary on, and review of, existing research and policy proposals may be considered depending on relevance to policy debates. Unlike many research institutions where research output is usually shelved, a main CPRD activity is the active dissemination of research results to civil societies, policymakers, concerned states and development partners.
2. Facilitate dialogue between civil societies and governments; between members of civil society that harbour diverse opinions (policy or otherwise); and between policymakers with multifarious policy views (that is, play a convening role). This will be achieved by contriving ways that connect policymakers, experts, academics, and civil society groups in dialogue on issues of critical importance for the Horn of Africa.

The two activities are complementary in the sense that the quality research outputs to be actively disseminated will contribute to ensuring the dialogue is well informed, and that major issues raised and alternative policy suggestions made during the dialogue, will be picked up for further analysis and scrutiny. To achieve the convening function, roundtables, seminars, workshops, and conferences will be organised as appropriate.

Research areas

CPRD will conduct multidisciplinary research and analysis in wide areas of current and/or future importance for the development of the Horn and Africa. Its main areas of research will include: peace and security; conflict prevention, management and resolution; economic development; and democratization.

Dissemination

The CPRD will fully serve the public good only if it can inform the range of policymakers, development partners and public, and consequently the dialogue agenda and policy processes. The actions needed to do this will involve creating access to issue based outputs by the public and policymakers through active dissemination strategies encompassing:

• policy memos
• briefings/seminars for policymakers
• interpretations and reviews of policies and current events
• briefings for the media
• organising seminars/conferences/workshops
• presentation/testimony in parliamentary hearings
• White papers
• publications (working paper series, referred journals)
• training
• facilitating exchange of ideas through roundtable discussions

FOUNDING MEMBERS OF CPRD:

Lieutenant General Gebretsadkan Gebretensae (mostly known as General Tsadkan) was a liberation fighter with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), first as a rank and file fighter and rose through the ranks to be a senior member of the TPLF leadership. During the armed struggle for over 15 years, he played a crucial role in building and commanding the liberation army, until his transition to the position of Chief of the General Staff of the new Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) from 1991 to 2001. During this period he led the transition of the liberation army of the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary democratic Front (EPRDF still the ruling party) into a conventional National defense force, and commanded the Armed forces in the war against Eritrea. He has received his Masters in International Policy and Practice from the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University and Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from the UK Open University.  He has written on constitutional issues related to the building of a new army in Ethiopia, and on HIV/AIDS and the Armed forces (in English), on military strategy, tactics and on military organization, in his native language.  Currently he is the founding member and Chief Executive Officer for the Center for Policy Research and Dialogue (CPRD) and is working on peace and security policy issues.

Dr. Kassahun Berhanu is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Addis Ababa University and holds a PhD in political science from the Free University of Amsterdam. He teaches courses on comparative politics, international relations and politics of development. He has carried out research on governance and decentralization, refugees, resettlement, ethnic and social conflict, democratization, electoral processes and civil society organization and has numerous publications on these subjects including Party Politics and Political Culture in Ethiopia (2003), Ethnicity and Social Conflicts in Ethiopia (2001) and Democratization in Late-Twentieth Century Africa: Coping with Uncertainty (1998). Since 1998 he has acted as associated research fellow with the Norwegian Center for Human Rights, the Oxford University Refugee Studies Center and the African Studies Center of the Lieden University.

Yemane Kidane (Jamaica) has a background in the Ethiopian Foreign Service as Chief of the Cabinet, Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1996-2003, and in the military serving first in the leadership of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Foreign Relations, and as the Chief of Personnel and Administration with the Ethiopian Ministry of National Defense (EMND) from 1991 to 1995. In these capacities he has worked on issues of peace and security, conflict analysis and resolution and peacekeeping in the Horn of Africa and Great Lakes sub-regions. He received a Masters of Business of Administration from the UK Open University and has worked as a consultant on international trade and public relations, and as Executive Director in the agro-processing sector with the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT). The current senior researcher for the CPRD with a focus on peace and security and foreign relations, he has also lectured on public diplomacy with the Ethiopian International Institute for Peace and Development (EIIPD).

Medhane Tadesse is an Assistant Professor of History and an expert defense and conflict analyst in the Horn of Africa. He has taught courses at the Kotobe Teacher Education College on Ethiopian history and African politics and researched extensively on regional peace and security in the Horn of Africa, ethnic conflicts, armed violence, inter-state wars, conflict resolution and management, globalized security and diplomacy. He has published three books and over sixty briefing papers, articles, commentaries and policy memos related to regime stability, conflict vulnerability, governance and humanitarian crisis in Africa. He is presently in charge of peace and security studies at the CPRD. He has served as a consultant to several African countries, political and armed groups and other international and non-governmental organizations in these conflict and governance fields.

Commodore Mesfin Binega is a retired commodore of the Ethiopian Navy, is currently Head of the Administrative Control and Management Centre of the African Union’s Darfur Integrated Task Force.  He has been with the AU since 1996, acting during that time as a military consultant and as the officer in charge of budget preparation and administration, and of logistics planning for AU peace support operations.  He was involved in the deployment of the AU’s African Mission in Burundi and the AU Mission in the Sudan.  While on active service he was, successively, Deputy Head and Head of the Main Department of Budget Planning of the Ethiopian Ministry of National Defence and economic adviser to the Ministry.  He is a member of the SIPRI Military Expenditure Network.  

Dr. Gebrehiwot Ageba is Assistant Professor of Economics at the Addis Ababa University, teaching since 1982, and a former chief economics expert in the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s Office on the financial sector. He has extensive research experience in financial sector reform, microfinance, micro and small-scale enterprise development and firm growth, performed in collaboration with the World Bank, Free University of Amsterdam, Oxford University, the University of Gothenburg and the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. He has served as a Board Member of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia and Executive Committee Member of the Ethiopian Economic Association for nearly four and two years respectively. Current areas of research focus include corporate governance, Islamic finance and the WTO.

Dr. Getnet Alemu heads the Macro Economic and Policy Studies Division of the Addis Ababa University Institute of Development Research (IDR), teaching policy analysis, macroeconomic policy and research methodologies. A PhD holder in Development Studies from the Netherlands Institute of Social Studies, he has specialized in research themes focusing on foreign aid, food security, land tenure, macroeconomic policy reform, public/private investment and the agriculture-industrialization nexus. He is the current IDR project leader for the World Bank social service survey of the Ethiopia Public Expenditure Review, a standing member of the Consultative Committee for the Comprehensive Urban Development Policy in Ethiopia (Ministry of Federal Affairs) and Editorial Board Member of the Ethiopian Economic Association. He has previously worked as an economic researcher in the National Urban Planning Institute (1988-1993), and as investment policy research expert in the Ethiopian Investment Commission.

Tadesse Kiros Siba is an Attorney at Law with an extensive and rich law experience spanning more than twenty years. Currently a law advocate and consultant, he has served as a High Court judge, as a special legal assistant to the Chief Justice of Ethiopia and presided as vice president of the Supreme Court of Ethiopia from 1992-1996. From 1996 he has worked as a Dean and lecturer in the Faculty of Law of the Ethiopian Civil Service College while also practicing law and consulting on legal matters.

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